August 25, 1916. THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN. 359 On-the-spot REPAIRS for Machinery or Plant. Furnace or boiler troubles, machinery or plant breakdown, can be overcome in a few hours by wiring — to — BARIMAR Scientific Welding Service which will immediately dispatch a Mobile Staff Section fully equipped to repair on the spot. Barimar Guaranteed Repairs—effected on the basis of “no cure no pay ”—are used by H.M. Admiralty, War Office, Leading Munition Works, as well as by Collieries, Coal Mines, and large Engineering Works of all descriptions. Wire Instantly for the instant help that will be provided by BARIMAR Limited, Welding and Machine Shops, 10, POLAND STREET, LONDON, W. ■■ Telephone— Telegrams— Bm 8173 Gerrard. “ Bariquamar, Beg-. London.” Gerrard. J. W. BAIRD AND COMPANY, PITWOOD IMPORTERS, WEST HARTLEPOOL, YEARLY CONTRACTS ENTERED INTO WITH COLLIERIES. OSBECK & COMPANY LIMITED, PIT-TIMBER MERCHANTS, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE. SUPPLY ALL KINDS OF COLLIERY TIMBER. Telegrams—“ Osbecks, Newcastle-on-Tyne.” *** For other Miscellaneous Advertisements see Last White Page. OUimi Suaulian AND Journal of tho Coal and Iron Trades. , Joint Editors— J. V. ELSDEN, D.Sc. (Lond.), F.G.S. HUBERT GREENWELL, F.S.S., Assoc.M.I.M.E. (Ai present on Active Service). LONDON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 1916. The London coal trade is brisk, but supplies are still short. Steam coals and small nuts are difficult to obtain. Slacks are easier. Both seaborne and railborne coals are coming forward more regularly. The Tyne and Wear trade suffers from disorganised loading turns, resulting in some pits being idle for a day or two. Most descriptions of coal are cheaper, and an easier tendency is noticeable also in Lanca- shire coals for shipment. Practically no alteration has occurred in Yorkshire, where the supply of empty wagons is plentiful enough to cause comment. In Derbyshire the same glut of wagons is observable. Slack is in better request. In Cardiff, buyers and sellers appear to be following a waiting policy. Business in Scotland is dull and featureless. More activity in chartering, without any great change in rates, is evident. Arrivals in north-eastern ports are unsatisfactory. The Cardiff market is glutted with offers for French ports. The autumn meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute will be held in London on September 21 and 22. Eight papers are put down to be read and discussed. The adjourned meeting of the Scottish Coal Trade Conciliation Board to consider the miners’ recent claim for an advance of 25 per cent, on the 1888 basis (nominally Is. per day) was held in Glasgow on Wednesday. Lord Strathclyde acted as independent chairman. Lord Justice Pickford, independent chairman of the South Wales Coal Conciliation Board, sat at Cardiff on Thursday to consider claims for variation of the wage rate. Decision was reserved. The owners demand a reduction of 15 per cent., reducing the standard of 1915 to 25’83, and the workmen ask for 12| per cent, increase, raising the standard to 53’33. The Government is stated to have under considera- tion a scheme of price limitation which would apply not only to Italy, but also to all coal shipped to Spain and Portugal. Mr. Runciman, in the House of Commons, expressed the hope that arrangements would prevent a recurrence of the high prices from which Italy suffered last winter and spring. Last week we outlined the general Nationalisation scheme of the committee of the and the Fabian Society for the extinction Coal Industry, of the War Debt by a compre- hensive scheme of nationalisation of nearly every successful industry in the country, with the notable exception of the shipping industry, which for some inscrutable reason has been left outside the confines of this ambitious project. We propose on the present occasion to examine more closely the arguments put forward for the applica- tion of this principle to coal mining. As a starting point, this committee assumes that the natural growth and development of the coal mining industry in Great Britain has suffered from wastefulness due to what is here termed capitalistic anarchy, and it is claimed that the coal owners themselves have repeatedly endeavoured to bring about a unification of management. In proof of this contentioii, obviously wholly erroneous, the committee points to the effort that was made by Sir George Elliot in 1893 to formulate a scheme for a national trust for all coal mines to operate under public supervision and control, and to certain local attempts that have been made from time to time to regulate output and prices. Sir George Elliot’s scheme, however, met with no success ; and all the other schemes cited, from the “ Limitation of the Vend,” dating from the eighteenth century, to those of more recent times, had objects very far remote from nationalisation, and were designed solely to restrict cut-throat competition within the industry. It is not fair play on the part of the Fabian committee to utilise these incidents for the purpose of creating an atmosphere favourable to their case, because it is wholly misleading and can only appeal to those who have no means of knowing the true situation. Another specious argument is derived from the danger of holding up supplies, and the fear of the ownership of coal mines passing into alien control. But we submit that no case has ever been made against the coal owner for holding up supplies, and the question of possible enemy ownership has already been promised an efficient remedy by the President of the Board of Trade. The»chief danger of an interruption of supply has hitherto been due to the attitude of labour; and the methods taken by the Government to control this element have certainly not inspired confidence in their ability to secure harmony under any conceivable condition of State management. In support of the general question of unification of colliery control and coal distribution, it is naturally easy to make out a plausible case. The Fabian committee has skilfully drawn up a powerful indictment of existing methods, and claims to have proved that the multiplicity of private interests leads to much unnecessary overlapping and waste. This, however, is scarcely the point at issue. It is not so much a matter of what might have been accomplished if the coal industry had from the first been organised upon national lines, as whether there would be any material advantage in now scrapping the whole of the complex machinery which has been gradually set up in order to deal with the huge business of providing coal for the nation’s needs. It is easy to point to defects in the existing system. It may be at once conceded that from various causes the machinery does not always work as smoothly as could be wished, and this is particularly noticeable in connection with the distribution of coal. But would Government control avoid these defects ? The authors of this report make much of the possi- bilities of improving canal transport; but those who have studied the elaborate report of the Royal Com- mission on Canals will know that there are very grave difficulties in the way of any efficient method of putting British canals into a condition suitable for such a purpose. It is too tacitly assumed that the gradual increase in the price of coal is due to such causes as faulty organisation of distribution, and the arbitrary conduct of the middleman. It is even implied that the custom is now almost universal amongst colliery owners of selling “free coal ” on a sliding scale basis, whereby every additional shilling per ton secured by the London Coal Exchange is divided between the merchant and the coal owner, a conclusion which was not arrived at by the recent Departmental Committee which examined this question. In examining the somewhat difficult question, Who gets the price of the coal ? the authors of this report find that out of an annual expenditure of £230,000,000, after allowing for wages, expense of working, royalties, transport by railways, ships and canals and cartage, there is a sum of about £30,000,000 still unaccounted for ; and it is assumed that this amount is frittered away in wasteful handling by middlemen, and in illicit profits which might be saved by a more systematic adjustment of supply and demand. Since, also, the committee do not appear to contemplate any drastic interference with colliery management, and it is certain that labour costs would not be diminished under Government control, it is clear that it is with regard to a proportion of this £30,000,000 alone that any saving would be possible under their scheme. The question of the capital value of existing collieries has frequently been discussed. According to a recent computation by Mr. J. C. Stamp* this amounts to £154,000,000. The Fabian committee, assuming the profits of all coal mines to be £9,000,000, and taking ten years’ purchase, arrive at the sum of £90,000,000 without royalties, or £170,000,000 with royalties included. The Miners’ Federation of Great Britain, in their Bill of 1913, assumed a value of between 10s. and 12s. per ton of yearly output. At the lower figure, on an output of 287,000,000 tons, the value would thus be £143,000,000. Based on Stock Exchange prices, the valuation would probably be considerably greater than any of these estimates, and the Fabian com- mittee ultimately arrive at an expropriation value ranging between £160,000,000 and £260,000,000, an amount which on the higher basis only slightly exceeds the average yearly cost of coal to consumers. From a purely financial standpoint, the estimated profit and loss account is computed to yield a balance of profit of only £7,000,000 on a total yearly expenditure of £206,000,000, which includes interest on capital at 5 per cent, and a sinking fund for redemption in 84 years. We need not enter into the details of this fanciful computation, which can naturally rest upon little but pure guesswork. But even admitting that it is approximately correct, there is a fatal flaw in the omission to carry a sufficient sum to development account. We may assume that new colliery developments must be pushed forward if Great Britain is to retain her position as a coal-producing country. Many of our new sinkings can only be carried out at great financial risk. Let ils take only, as examples, the Kent coal field and the developments in the Doncaster area. Who is to provide the capital for these ventures, many of them highly speculative, under a nationalisation scheme ? And what will become of the computed annual surplus if the State is called upon to shoulder the risks and uncertainties now borne by private persons? The Fabian com- mittee, it is true, propose to set aside £5,000,000 for such purposes, which sum includes all renewals of plant and machinery. Mr. J. 0. Stamp, in the work referred to above, says that about £2,000,000 are now annually spent in pit-sinking alone, without any allowance for pithead plant and other machinery, and we know what a length of time and absorption of capital are usually necessary before a new colliery can be brought to a profit-earning stage. All these risks and responsibilities would have to be borne by the British public in the shape of taxation, and we venture to predict that from a financial standpoint the proposed scheme, instead of contributing to the elimination of the War Debt, would prove to be but an additional burden. The proposal stands condemned on its estimated figures alone. Still more fantastical are the economic results that are expected to follow from it. Let us enumerate a few of these. One of the most important blessings foreshadowed is the abolition of the perpetual strife between labour and capital. This portion of the argument is set forth in all sincerity as a simple means of over- coming all the difficulties that have for so many years been a source of almost continual dissatisfac- * See British Incomes and Property, 1916, p. 404.